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We must begin with thanksgiving for everything.
The beginning of joy is to be content with your situation.
~ St. Ambrose of Optina
Category: Faith Hope Love
The Greatest Good
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Happiness is a pure heart, for such a heart becomes the throne of God. Thus says Christ of those who have pure hearts: “I will visit them, and will walk in them, and I will be a God to them, and they will be my people.” (2 Cor. 6:16) What can be lacking to them? Nothing, nothing at all! For they have the greatest good in their hearts: God Himself! ~ St. Nektarios of Aegina
From Flower to Flower
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Be like little bees that go about from flower to flower and gather only the nectar from which they can make honey. A bee flies from flower to flower – to many flowers. But bees don’t stay where there’s no nectar from which they can make honey – they flee. So, may you collect from everyone only what is good and beneficial to you. Let the rest just slip by, as though through raindrops. ~ Elder Paisios; A Little Corner of Paradise
Our Lord Jesus Christ deserves unending praise!
For all His known and unknown blessings…
For helping us to find and grind the good wheat…
For wisdom to avoid indigestible chaff.
While threshing and milling a myriad of useless thoughts and actions over stressful situations… Mercifully, and with God’s help (again), it recently occurred to me I’d reacquired an ugly old habit of hovering over stinky, nectarless, flowers. Phew!
Thank you for your prayers. They mean a lot to me!
Jesus, beautiful goodness, adorn me with flowers of good thoughts and feelings. ~ Ikos 6; Akathist for Holy Communion
The Divine Mystery in Things
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Love all creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand within it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.~ Starets Zosima (Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov)
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. ~ Psalm 121:1-2
Not of This World
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There is an ineffable instant in the Liturgy’s Eucharistic Anaphora where heaven and earth converge in Divine Sanctification- unfettered by time or space.
This is a Great Mystery.
Truth is the Beverage of Life
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One should not seek among others the truth that can be easily gotten from the Church. For in her, as in a rich treasury, the apostles have placed all that pertains to truth, so that everyone can drink this beverage of life. She is the door of life. ~ St. Irenaeus of Lyon
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. ~ Psalm 100:5
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. ~ St. John 1:14
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. ~ St. John 4:24
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ~ St. John 8:32
For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth…~ Ephesians 5:9
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. ~ 1 John 3:18
Made Perfect in Weakness
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…My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. ~ Philippians 4:13
Dearer Than the Light of Heaven
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Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as bright bodies emit rays to a distance, and flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favour even to the places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts; they only can know who have experienced. A friend is dearer than the light of heaven, for it would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends. ~ St. John Chrysostom
Be of Good Courage
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The word courage comes from the Middle English and Old French words corage, and from the Latin word cor… All of which mean heart, and what is in one’s mind or true thoughts. Courage is an action within an action.
Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. ~ Psalm 31:24
Let us hymn the Virgin Mary, the glory of the whole world, who sprang forth from men and gave birth unto the Master, the portal of heaven, and the subject of the hymnody of the incorporeal hosts; for she hath been shown to be heaven and the temple of the Godhead. Having destroyed the middle-wall of enmity, she hath brought forth peace and opened wide the kingdom. Therefore, having her as the confirmation of our faith, we have as champion the Lord born of her. Be of good courage! Yea, be ye of good cheer, O people of God, for He vanquisheth the foe, in that He is almighty! ~ Dogmatic Theotokion
Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee. ~ Psalm 38:9
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. ~ Romans 8:26
As the Morning Light
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And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. ~ 2 Samuel 23:4
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. ~ Psalm 5:3
…Joy cometh in the morning. ~ Psalm 30:5
This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. ~ Psalm 118:24